Project description:Ewing sarcoma (ES) is the second most common pediatric malignancy of the bones and soft tissue, but few advances in therapeutic options have been made over the past several decades. A characteristic feature of ES that and an attractive therapeutic targets is the EWS-FLI1 fusion protein. A small molecule inhibitor of EWS-FLI1, YK-4-279 was as a targeted therapy option for Ewing sarcoma patients. A YK-4-279 analog, TK216, is currently in clinical trial. With any targeted therapy, there is always the risk that tumors will become resistant and stop responding to treatment. Here, we investigated resistance mechanisms to YK-4-279 (YK) by developing ES cell lines specifically resistant to YK. We found that expression of the cell surface protein CD99 was elevated in YK-resistant cells. Increased CD99 expression occurs within five days of YK treatment in vivo. When CD99 expression is reduced by shRNA, resistant cells regain sensitivity to YK but reducing CD99 expression in non-resistant cells does not affect sensitivity. Little is known about CD99 function in the context of Ewing sarcoma, but the data presented here indicates the function of CD99 is altered upon acquisition of YK resistance, and that CD99 serves a critical function in developed resistance to YK-4-279. RNA sequencing analysis yielded candidate genes that may also be involved in the YK resistance mechanism. We identified a potential modulator of CD99 function, ANO1, a member of the ANO family and a participant in membrane-bound ion channel activity. CD99 has previously been linked with membrane-associated ion channels. A functional association between the two proteins remains to be investigated.
Project description:A chimeric fusion between the RNA binding protein EWS and the ETS family transcription factor FLI1 (EWS-FLI1), created from a chromosomal translocation, is implicated in driving the majority of Ewing sarcomas (ES) by modulation of transcription and alternative splicing. The small molecule YK-4-279 inhibits EWS-FLI1 function and induces apoptosis. We tested 69 anti-cancer drugs in combination with YK-4-279 and found that vinca alkaloids exhibited synergy with YK-4-279 in five ES cell lines. The combination of YK-4-279 and vincristine reduced tumor burden and increased survival in mice bearing ES xenografts. We determined that independent drug-induced events converged to cause this synergistic therapeutic effect. YK-4-279 rapidly induced G2/M arrest, increased the abundance of cyclin B1, and decreased EWS-FLI1–mediated expression of microtubule-associated proteins, which rendered cells more susceptible to microtubule depolymerization by vincristine. YK-4-279 reduced the expression of the EWS-FLI1 target gene encoding ubiquitin ligase UBE2C, and this in part contributed to the increase in cyclin B1. Biochemical assays revealed that YK-4-279 also increased the abundance of proapoptotic isoforms of MCL1 and BCL2, presumably through inhibition of alternative splicing by EWS-FLI1, thus promoting cell death in response to vincristine. Thus a combination of vincristine and YK-4-279 might be therapeutically effective in ES patients.
Project description:Ewing sarcoma (EWS) is a malignant pediatric bone cancer. Most Ewing sarcomas are driven by EWS-FLI1 oncogenic transcription factor that plays roles in transcriptional regulation, DNA damage response, cell cycle checkpoint control, and alternative splicing. USP1, a deubiquitylase which regulates DNA damage and replication stress responses, is overexpressed at both the mRNA and protein levels in EWS cell lines compared to human mesenchymal stem cells, the EWS cell of origin. The functional significance of high USP1 expression in Ewing sarcoma is not known. Here, we identify USP1 as a transcriptional target of EWS-FLI1 and a key regulator of EWS cell survival. We show that EWS-FLI1 knockdown decreases USP1 mRNA and protein levels. ChIP and ChIP-seq analyses show EWS-FLI1 occupancy on the USP1 promoter. Importantly, USP1 knockdown or inhibition arrests EWS cell growth and induces cell death by apoptosis. We observe destabilization of Survivin (also known as BIRC5 or IAP4) and activation of caspases-3 and -7 following USP1 knockdown or inhibition in the absence of external DNA damage stimuli. Notably, EWS cells display hypersensitivity to combinatorial treatment of doxorubicin or etoposide, EWS standard of care drugs, and USP1 inhibitor compared to single agents alone. Together, our study demonstrates that USP1 is regulated by EWS-FLI1, the USP1-Survivin axis promotes EWS cell survival, and USP1 inhibition sensitizes EWS cells to standard of care chemotherapy.
Project description:The synthesis and processing of mRNA, from transcription to translation initiation, often requires splicing of intragenic material. The final mRNA composition varies based upon proteins that modulate splice site selection. EWS-FLI1 is an Ewing sarcoma (ES) oncogene with an interactome that we demonstrate to have multiple partners in spliceosomal complexes. We evaluate EWS-FLI1 upon post-transcriptional gene regulation using both exon array and RNA-seq. Genes that potentially regulate oncogenesis including CLK1, CASP3, PPFIBP1, and TERT validate as alternatively spliced by EWS-FLI1. EWS-FLI1 also alters splicing by directly binding to known splicing factors including DDX5, hnRNPK, and PRPF6. Reduction of EWS-FLI1 produces an isoform of g-TERT that has increased telomerase activity compared to WT TERT. The small molecule YK-4-279 is an inhibitor of EWS-FLI1 oncogenic function that disrupts specific protein interactions including DDX5 and RNA helicase A (RHA) that alters RNA splicing ratios. As such, YK-4-279 validates the splicing mechanism of EWS-FLI1 showing alternatively spliced gene patterns that significantly overlap with EWS-FLI1 reduction and WT human mesenchymal stem cells. Exon array analysis of 75 ES patient samples show similar isoform expression patterns to cell line models expressing EWS-FLI1, supporting the clinical relevance of our findings. These experiments establish systemic alternative splicing as an oncogenic process modulated by EWS-FLI1. EWS-FLI1 modulation of mRNA splicing may provide insight into the contribution of splicing towards oncogenesis, and reciprocally, EWS-FLI1 interactions with splicing proteins may inform the splicing code. Alternative splicing of RNA allows a limited number of coding regions in the human genome to produce proteins with diverse functionality. Alternative splicing has also been implicated as an oncogenic process. Identifying aspects of cancer cells that differentiate them from non-cancer cells remains an ongoing challenge and our research suggests that alternatively spliced mRNA and subsequent protein isoforms will provide new anti-cancer targets. We determined that the key oncogene of Ewing sarcoma (ES), EWS-FLI1, regulates alternative splicing in multiple cell line models. These experiments establish oncogenic aspects of splicing which are specific to cancer cells and thereby illuminate potentially oncogenic splicing shifts as well as provide a useful stratification mechanism for ES patients. We analyzed three models of EWS-FLI1 using Affymetrix GeneChip Human Exon 1.0 ST microarray: (i) Ewing's sarcoma TC32 wild-type cells expressing EWS-FLI1, and TC32 cells where EWS-FLI1 was reduced with a lentiviral shRNA; (ii) A673i, which has a doxycycline-inducible shRNA to reduce EWS-FLI1 expression, and wild-type EWS-FLI1 to screen for alternative splicing as measured by exon-specific expression changes; and (iii) human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC), a putative cell of origin of Ewing's sarcoma, exogenously expressing EWS-FLI1, and hMSC wild-type cells without EWS-FLI1. Three biological replicates were included for each condition. The Bioconductor package "oligo" in the R programming language was used for normalization and background correction. Analysis was carried out using only core probesets, as defined by the manufacturer.
Project description:The synthesis and processing of mRNA, from transcription to translation initiation, often requires splicing of intragenic material. The final mRNA composition varies based upon proteins that modulate splice site selection. EWS-FLI1 is an Ewing sarcoma (ES) oncogene with an interactome that we demonstrate to have multiple partners in spliceosomal complexes. We evaluate EWS-FLI1 upon post-transcriptional gene regulation using both exon array and RNA-seq. Genes that potentially regulate oncogenesis including CLK1, CASP3, PPFIBP1, and TERT validate as alternatively spliced by EWS-FLI1. EWS-FLI1 also alters splicing by directly binding to known splicing factors including DDX5, hnRNPK, and PRPF6. Reduction of EWS-FLI1 produces an isoform of g-TERT that has increased telomerase activity compared to WT TERT. The small molecule YK-4-279 is an inhibitor of EWS-FLI1 oncogenic function that disrupts specific protein interactions including DDX5 and RNA helicase A (RHA) that alters RNA splicing ratios. As such, YK-4-279 validates the splicing mechanism of EWS-FLI1 showing alternatively spliced gene patterns that significantly overlap with EWS-FLI1 reduction and WT human mesenchymal stem cells. Exon array analysis of 75 ES patient samples show similar isoform expression patterns to cell line models expressing EWS-FLI1, supporting the clinical relevance of our findings. These experiments establish systemic alternative splicing as an oncogenic process modulated by EWS-FLI1. EWS-FLI1 modulation of mRNA splicing may provide insight into the contribution of splicing towards oncogenesis, and reciprocally, EWS-FLI1 interactions with splicing proteins may inform the splicing code. Alternative splicing of RNA allows a limited number of coding regions in the human genome to produce proteins with diverse functionality. Alternative splicing has also been implicated as an oncogenic process. Identifying aspects of cancer cells that differentiate them from non-cancer cells remains an ongoing challenge and our research suggests that alternatively spliced mRNA and subsequent protein isoforms will provide new anti-cancer targets. We determined that the key oncogene of Ewing sarcoma (ES), EWS-FLI1, regulates alternative splicing in multiple cell line models. These experiments establish oncogenic aspects of splicing which are specific to cancer cells and thereby illuminate potentially oncogenic splicing shifts as well as provide a useful stratification mechanism for ES patients.
Project description:EWS-FLI1 is the driver oncogene in >85% of Ewing sarcoma tumors. We used siRNA to knock down EWS-FLI1 for 48h hours in two Ewing sarcoma cell lines (EW8, TC71) to identify downstream genes and pathways affected by loss of EWS-FLI1 activity. RNAseq analysis was performed after 48 hours of treatment with a nontargeting siControl or siEWS-FLI1.
Project description:we report a synthetic lethality of ETV6 and EWS-FLI1 in ewing sarcome that is imposed by ETV6 antagonize EWS-FLI1 from particular GGAA microsatellite sites
Project description:Posterior homeobox D genes, in particular HOXD13, are over-expressed by Ewing sarcoma, a tumor driven by the oncogenic fusion protein EWS-FLI1. Here, we have found that EWS-FLI1 maintains HOXD13 expression through a GGAA microsatellite enhancer in the developmental posterior HOXD regulatory domain. Activation of this enhancer is EWS-FLI1 dependent and epigenomic silencing of this region leads to loss of HOXD13 expression in Ewing sarcoma cells, but not in unrelated cells. To determine the function of HOXD13 activation in Ewing sarcoma we performed nascent RNA sequencing or RNA sequencing upon HOXD13 knockdown.
Project description:The molecular hallmark of the Ewing family of tumors is the presence of balanced chromosomal translocations leading to the formation of chimerical transcription factors (i.e. EWS/FLI1) that play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of Ewing tumors by deregulating gene expression. We have recently demonstrated that DAX1 (NR0B1), an orphan nuclear receptor which was not previously implicated in cancer, is induced by the EWS/FLI1 oncoprotein and is highly expressed in Ewing tumors, suggesting that DAX1 is a biologically relevant target of EWS/FLI1-mediated oncogenesis. In this work we demonstrate that DAX1 is a direct transcriptional target of the EWS/FLI1 oncoprotein through its binding to a GGA-rich region in the DAX1 promoter and show that DAX1 is a key player of EWS/FLI1-mediated oncogenesis. DAX1 silencing using an inducible model of RNA interference induces growth arrest in the A673 Ewing cell line and severely impairs its capability to grow in semisolid medium and form tumors in immunodeficient mice. Gene expression profile analysis demonstrated that about ten percent of the genes regulated by EWS/FLI1 in Ewing cells are DAX1 targets, confirming the importance of DAX1 in Ewing oncogenesis. These findings indicate that DAX1 is an important player in the pathogenesis of the Ewing family of tumors, identify new functions for DAX1 as a cell cycle progression regulator and open the possibility to new therapeutic approaches based on DAX1 function interference. A673 cells derived from Ewing sarcoma were genetically enginereed to express specific shRNAs against GFP (control), EWS/FLI1 and DAX1 upon doxycycline stimulation. Three independent clones and a polyclonal population from each enginereed cell were analyzed. Cells were stimulated with doxycycline for 72 hours to induce the expression of the corresponding shRNA and whole gene expression profile performed. Gene expression profile in A673 cells in which EWS/FLI1 or DAX1 were silenced were compared to the control cells.
Project description:We have performed a high-throughput RNA interference screen to identify targets inhibiting EWS-FLI1 driven cell proliferation in Ewing sarcoma cells. EWS-FLI1 expressing A673 Ewing sarcoma cells were screened both in presence and absence of EWS-FLI1 shRNA induction with druggable siRNA library. Leucine rich repeats and WD repeat Domain containing 1 (LRWD1) targeting siRNA pool was the strongest anti-proliferative hit identified only in presence of EWS-FLI1. Validation experiments confirmed the anti-proliferative effect of LRWD1 depletion especially in EWS-FLI1 expressing cells. Functional analysis of differentially expressed genes in LRWD1 depleted Ewing sarcoma cells showed over-representation of connective tissue development, cell projection morphogenesis and neuronal processes.